Facebook acquires virtual reality company Oculus VR for $2 billion

Facebook acquires virtual reality company Oculus VR for $2 billion

By Puneet Sikka
|
Mar 27, 2014 1:59 pm EST

Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $2 billion

Facebook (FB) recently announced that it’s acquiring Oculus VR, the maker of a virtual reality headset, for a valuation of $2 billion. The amount will include $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock valued at a total of $1.6 billion. The agreement also provides for an additional $300 million earn-out in cash and stock based on the achievement of certain milestones. The deal is expected to close during the second quarter of 2014.

Facebook keeping its big acquisitions trend intact

Facebook, which competes with LinkedIn (LNKD) in the social media space, has done its third big acquisition in less than two years. Facebook first bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, then it bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in February this year, and now it’s buying Oculus. Market Realist covered Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp and then its impact on Twitter (TWTR). In that series, we discussed about WhatsApp and its prospects. The most notable thing note about WhatsApp was that its monthly active users had grown so fast in the first four years of the company’s existence that it comfortably beat Facebook, Google’s (GOOG) Gmail, Twitter, and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Skype combined monthly active users in their respective first four years of existence.

Oculus is a leader in immersive virtual reality technology

According to a press release from Facebook, Oculus is the leader in immersive virtual reality technology and has already built strong interest among developers, having received more than 75,000 orders for development kits for the company’s virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. A blog post from Oculus shares the whole story of how Facebook’s intent to acquire Oculus developed. It reads, “A few months ago, Mark, Chris, and Cory from the Facebook team came down to visit our office, see the latest demos, and discuss how we could work together to bring our vision to millions of people. As we talked more, we discovered the two teams shared an even deeper vision of creating a new platform for interaction that allows billions of people to connect in a way never before possible.”